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Purpose: Perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) is a neural convergence site for social stress-related risk factors for mental health, including ethnic minority status. Current social status, a strong predictor of mental and somatic health, has been related to gray matter volume in this region, but the effects of social mobility over the lifespan are unknown and may differ in minorities. Recent studies suggest a diminished health return of upward social mobility for ethnic minority individuals, potentially due to sustained stress-associated experiences and subsequent activation of the neural stress response system. Methods: To address this issue, we studied an ethnic minority sample with strong upward social mobility. In a cross-sectional design, we examined 64 young adult native German and 76 ethnic minority individuals with comparable sociodemographic attributes using whole-brain structural magnetic resonance imaging. Results: Results showed a significant group-dependent interaction between perceived upward social mobility and pACC gray matter volume, with a significant negative association in the ethnic minority individuals. Post-hoc analysis showed a significant mediation of the relationship between perceived upward social mobility and pACC volume by perceived chronic stress, a variable that was significantly correlated with perceived discrimination in our ethnic minority group. Conclusion: Our findings extend prior work by pointing to a biological signature of the "allostatic costs" of socioeconomic attainment in socially disadvantaged upwardly mobile individuals in a key neural node implicated in the regulation of stress and negative affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relative roles of brainstem, thalamus and striatum in parkinsonism in schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD) patients are largely unknown. To determine whether topographical alterations of the brainstem, thalamus and striatum contribute to parkinsonism in SSD patients, we conducted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of SSD patients with (SSD-P, n = 35) and without (SSD-nonP, n = 64) parkinsonism, as defined by a Simpson and Angus Scale (SAS) total score of ≥ 4 and < 4, respectively, in comparison with healthy controls (n = 20). FreeSurfer v6.0 was used for segmentation of four brainstem regions (medulla oblongata, pons, superior cerebellar peduncle and midbrain), caudate nucleus, putamen and thalamus. Patients with parkinsonism had significantly smaller medulla oblongata (p = 0.01, false discovery rate (FDR)-corrected) and putamen (p = 0.02, FDR-corrected) volumes when compared to patients without parkinsonism. Across the entire patient sample (n = 99), significant negative correlations were identified between (a) medulla oblongata volumes and both SAS total (p = 0.034) and glabella-salivation (p = 0.007) scores, and (b) thalamic volumes and both SAS total (p = 0.033) and glabella-salivation (p = 0.007) scores. These results indicate that brainstem and thalamic structures as well as basal ganglia-based motor circuits play a crucial role in the pathogenesis of parkinsonism in SSD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cortisol rise after awakening (cortisol awakening response, CAR) is a core biomarker of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation related to psychosocial stress and stress-related psychiatric disorders. However, the neural regulation of the CAR has not been examined in humans. Here, we studied neural regulation related to the CAR in a sample of 25 healthy human participants using an established psychosocial stress paradigm together with multimodal functional and structural (voxel-based morphometry) magnetic resonance imaging. Across subjects, a smaller CAR was associated with reduced grey matter volume and increased stress-related brain activity in the perigenual ACC, a region which inhibits HPA axis activity during stress that is implicated in risk mechanisms and pathophysiology of stress-related mental diseases. Moreover, functional connectivity between the perigenual ACC and the hypothalamus, the primary controller of HPA axis activity, was associated with the CAR. Our findings provide support for a role of the perigenual ACC in regulating the CAR in humans and may aid future research on the pathophysiology of stress-related illnesses, such as depression, and environmental risk for illnesses such as schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite considerable public interest research in neurobiological correlates of pedophilia is scarce. Since amygdala activation is central for emotional valuation, arousal, and salience, we investigated the activation profile of this structure in 10 male subjects with pedophilia (exclusively attracted to boys), all convicted sex-offenders and sentenced to forensic psychiatric treatment along with ten male heterosexual matched controls. We used a sexually non-explicit functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) paradigm with images of men, women, boys or girls randomly embedded in neutral target/non-target geometrical symbols. We applied statistical parametric mapping (SPM2) and SPSS 14 for image processing and analysis. While controls activated significantly less to pictures of children compared to adults, the activation profile was reversed in subjects with pedophilia, who exhibited significantly more activation to children than adults. The highest activation was observed for boys in the patient group, and for women in control participants. Our data show enhanced activation to children’s pictures even in an incidental context and suggest the provocative hypothesis that a normally present mechanism for reduced emotional arousal for children relative to adults is reversed in pedophilia, suggesting a neural substrate associated with deviant sexual preference in this condition. More extensive research in this field would be of benefit for both the victims and the offenders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]